Authors

Abstract

This paper outlines the researcher-devised QUEST method to clarify and identify children’s engagement with oral storytelling . In a series of research challenges and solution-seeking processes, the storyteller worked with traditional storytelling approaches and also with contemporary digital recordings and analysis software to follow students’ responses to storytelling experiences . As a result of deep analysis that looked beyond the raw data and questioned why certain responses occurred, a set of Indicators of Engagement were devised . Twenty-five indicators were identified that were further broken down in clusters of common types of engagement behaviors . These indicators can be applied to future studies, with both children and adults that investigate the intriguing phenomenon of storytelling .